The cost of environmental and risk regulations on the economy
has risen from $80 billion per year in 1977 to an estimated $250
billion in 1998. Source: T.D. Hopkins, "Regulatory Costs
in Profile," Center for the Study of American Business.
Contact: 314/935-5662, Web: http://csab.wustl.edu.

Expenditures by the Environmental Protection Agency, one
of many federal agencies involved in environmental policy, have
risen from $1.289 billion in fiscal year 1971 to $7.4 billion
in fiscal year 1998. Meanwhile, the EPA's staff has grown from
5,500 to over 14,000 (excluding part-time employees). Expenditures
by the National Park Service will top $1.6 billion in 1998 while
expenditures by the Fish and Wildlife Service will be close to
$750 million. Sources: The EPA and Steve Moore of the Cato Institute.
Contact: 202/842-0200, Web: http://www.cato.org.

Since 1971, the Federal Register, a government document that
publishes all new federal regulations, has grown from 2,036 pages
to over 69,000 pages. Source: Heritage Foundation's regulation
web site, www.regulation.org.

U.S. compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, an international
agreement approved in December 1997 mandating that the U.S. reduce
its carbon dioxide emissions by 7%below 1990 levels by 2012,
could cost the U.S. economy $300 billion per year and result
in job losses in the two to three million range, according to
preliminary estimates. To meet the 7% target, the U.S. would
have to reduce both CO2 emissions and fuel consumption to 30%
below what they would normally be. This is because increased
population coupled with economic growth would push energy consumption
up by 18% automatically. To put these numbers in perspective,
the Great Depression only resulted in a 10% reduction in energy
consumption. Even a more modest objective of reducing CO2 emissions
to 1990 levels could prove costly. A study conducted by the prestigious
Wharton Economic Forecasting Associates (WEFA) last year concluded
that just stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels
would result in a cumulative loss in Gross Domestic Product of
$3.3 trillion over 20 years and a cumulative loss of 22.8 million
person-years of employment. It would also result in increases
in consumer prices of between 40% and 90%, with natural gas and
electricity rates rising by 132% and 101% respectively. Further,
the Brookings Institution's Warwick McKibbin and Peter Wilcoxen
argue that such stabilization would cause "dramatic changes
in exchange rates, trade balances, and international capital
flows." Assuming U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would increase
by 20% over 1990 levels by 2010, reducing them to 1990 levels
would result in an increase in the U.S. trade deficit of between
$27 and $54 billion each year. Sources: "The New 'Clinton-Lite'
Global Warming Strategy: Half the Controversy, Same Bad Aftertaste,"
National Center for Public Policy Research, Contact: David Ridenour
@ 202/5543-4110, E-mail: [email protected],Web:
www.nationalcenter.org;
"Kyoto's Seven Percent Solution," National Center for
Policy Analysis, Contact: H. Sterling Burnett @ 972/386-6272,
Web: www.ncpa.org; and Energy
Advocate, January 1998